What we play is life

Wallis Bird

The best artist to emerge from Enniscorthy since Eileen Gray and Colm Toibin, Galbally’s Wallis Bird unleashed the full package of her astonishing vocal range before a capacity National Opera House. A homecoming for many, the concert was a magnet for aficionados of Bird, from near and far, and for whom this marked the first opportunity to see her perform songs from her latest collection, Home.

It is a measure of the synchronicity between the singer and the songwriter that Bird remains the best interpreter of her own oeuvre, which is demonstratively superlative throughout the eleven tracks of love. And though she revisited some jewels from the past (To My Bones) the concert was bookended with two of the strongest tracks from Home, the sublime Love, and Seasons, which she dedicated to the late and lamented Barry Ennis.

Bird is nakedly forthcoming as an artist, baring her soul on the sacrificial altar of love and commitment, and you don’t have to understand English to embrace her passion and her joie de vivre. And though Home picks off where Architect in 2014 left off, celebrating her relocation to Berlin, it is – by an ocean – far removed from the decadence celebrated by others who have found solace there.

Bird has expanded her emotional repertoire (none of her previous work touches the narrative arc of the title track, sung a cappella) and spontaneously segues the heart and the voice. There is an unaffected joy to the way she makes her songs gleam, and though she has the energy of a waifish dervish and can throw caution to the wind, she always has a firm grasp of the kite. Though there is nothing half-hearted or compromised from the chanteuse and writer, Bird still manages to surprise by pushing the boundaries of her craft.

Performed live, Love acts like an overture, signposting what is to come. The by now legendary acoustics of the Opera House swooned to a full throated, nuclear dawn chorus of Bird’s voice, which can soar from a standstill with the speed of a tercel.